Stoke is positioning Nova to fill the shoes of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which is on the road to retirement.

Stoke Space Technologies, which is nearing the first flight of a fully reusable launch vehicle, has raised $1 billion to work on a larger rocket.

Stoke has "completed the initial closing" of a $1B Series E round intended to help it reach orbit and prepare a new, larger rocket for operations.